I finally got to play RISK 2210 AD Saturday night. Checking my Amazon.com account, I found out that I’d ordered it January 16th … 2002. So, cool, only six years until I actually got around to getting some blokes together to play it!
RISK 2210 AD is a modernized edition of the classic war game, published by Hasbro under the Avalon Hill banner (A.H. also publishes a similar variant, titled RISK GODSTORM). 2210 AD is set — yes, in the future! — but in a world ravaged by nuclear war. At the start of the game, four territories are marked as non passable nuclear wastelands. In addition, new troop movements are possible via underwater colonies, and a whole new planet is open to invasion: by use of spaceports, you can invade the moon and fight your foes there!
Troop pieces are mechanized robots of various sizes (one with hulking missile launchers on its shoulders), with commander pieces allowing for extra defense and attacking powers, as well as the ability to use specialized cards allowing you to destroy half of your enemy’s attacking force or recruit additional reinforcements. Energy acts as currency, with energy coins — and reinforcements — doled out at the start of each player’s turn allowing for the purchase of Commander Cards. The game lasts five “years”, with each turn representing a year. At the end of the five years, the player with the most territories is the winner. In a twist I whole-heartedly agree with, a player’s position in the turn’s rotation changes at the beginning of each turn based on a bidding system.
Unfortunately, I failed to watch THE PRINCESS BRIDE before playing (although we — me, JWER, Wombat — watched “Blue Harvest” while waiting for stragglers, none of whom showed), or I would’ve remembered the immortal lesson: “NEVER FIGHT A LAND WAR IN ASIA!” Figuring that the future might’ve allowed for Asia to be an easier conquest (as even Australia now has three ways of invasion), I, um, failed. JWER played as the Black Army, Wombat was the Baby-Shit Army, and I played as the Union Army, blaming all of my defenses on my Land Commander, who I named General McClellan. Completely. JWER and Wombat ate into my territory, and the only reason I didn’t come in third place is that once the fifth turn was coming to an end on Wombat’s, he wasted most of his troops punching through JWER’s lines and then rampaging through barely defended Europe and North America until he’d exhausted his forces.
There was a “cat on the board” incident, but as was noted, “I never though a cat on a RISK board would do so little damage.”
Photos, after the break.
